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Friday, November 8, 2013

Captain's Log, Week 185

Happy Friday! I hope you've had a really good week. We've had a fantastic week, because we finally have our little baby Zelda with us.

She is an absolute doll. Just so cute and sweet and cuddly and content. As you probably saw from our post announcing her birth, she was born in the wee hours of last Saturday morning. We've spent the week adjusting to being parents of two and making sure both our girls get lots and lots of love and attention.

Ellie really likes Zelda. She loves pointing out where Zelda is, saying, "Look, it's baby Zelda!" (She pronounces it like "Zeuwda.") And she gives her kisses, and points out all her eyes and ears and nose and mouth, and tells us "Shhh" when she's sleeping, and pats her on the head when she's crying and says "I know, I know" to comfort her. One day this week she told us, "Wuv Zelda."

Zelda's a very content and (for the most part) very easy baby. She sleeps alllll day long, pretty much only waking up to eat. It's about 2 in the morning that she really wakes up, and will still be quiet and content as long as you're holding her, but will squirm and cry in those hours if you're not holding her. We're trying to wake her up more in the day and keep her awake, so that her schedule will shift and she won't wake up from 2 AM onwards every day. The only other times she cries are if she's hungry or if we're changing her diaper. Other than that, she's just a happy little baby. :)

After she was born, we stayed in the hospital the rest of Saturday and for about half of Sunday, finally getting to come home on Sunday afternoon. Ellie spent almost the whole weekend with her Nana and Papa and some of her aunts and uncles, all of whom she loves, but it was really tough for her being away from me and Jason so long and she got pretty stressed about it. Jason even stayed the night with her on Saturday night, but it didn't offset the Mommy-and-Daddy-are-gone thing enough and she spent almost all of Sunday asking for us. When she woke up on Monday morning (even after we'd all been home together Sunday evening), she had a big meltdown, which was definitely the result of the stress of the weekend for her. Eventually she calmed down, though, and we spent all of Monday and Tuesday at home with her and the baby, showering her with lots of attention and showing her that Mommy and Daddy weren't going anywhere. She responded really well, and by the end of Tuesday was back to normal (sleeping normally, not having more tantrums than normal, etc).

One of the fun things Ellie's started doing this week is crawling around on all fours, "roaring" and pretending to be a lion. This is the first time she's done that kind of pretend play, and it's really fun. I'll usually crawl around with her, and we'll be lions.

She's also been coloring a lot this week. I got her a box of crayons from 99 cents store, and she alternates between taking all the paper off the crayons and using them to color in her coloring books. (Also, we think her favorite color is green, because that's always the first color she chooses to use, and yells "Green!" with enthusiasm.") She really likes coloring; she'll sit at her little desk and color for (in toddler-terms) long periods of time. She just focuses in and has a long attention span when she's coloring.

Also, this is her first braid. Jason put it in yesterday. :)

And to give you some more of Ellie, here's a conversation she and I had this morning. I pulled a bag out of her toys that was filled with dinosaurs.

Me: "Ellie, what's in this bag?" I opened the bag and showed her.
Ellie: "Dinosaurs!" Taking the bag, dumping it out, and picking up one of the dinosaurs she said: "Dinosaurs everywhere! Look mommy, a brankysaurus." (I think she was trying to say "brachiosaurus," or possibly "brontosaurus." Probably brachiosaurus.)
I took one of the dinosaurs and hid it under a bowl, and asked Ellie, "What's under the bowl?" I lifted up the bowl.
Ellie: "A dinosaur!" She ran over and picked up the dinosaur, and said, "Let's keep looking." I hid another dinosaur, which she found again, and when she found it she said, "A green dinosaur! There it is." After I hid a few more dinosaurs in some different locations, she said, "Ellie's turn," and began hiding the dinosaurs. She had me look in various places, including an empty puzzle box. When I looked inside it, she turned it upside down and said, "There's nuffin dere. Where's the dinosaur?" And we kept "looking" and found him a minute later.

Anyway, that's Ellie. :)

We took a lot of really cute pictures of both of the girls yesterday; I'll post them tomorrow. In the meantime, I hope you have a great Friday night! :)

Um, the part where you talked about Ellie interacting with Zelda and being all lovey was SO sweet. Love it. Also, Alyse told me all about your labor and that's crazy, but awesome that it all happened so fast! Congratulations and hope you have a smooooth recovery!

Welcome to the epic record of our family's adventures! My name is Jocelyn. My husband Jason and I have been best friends ever since we started high school. We got married on April 23, 2010, in the Newport Beach Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We are currently living in Texas with our beautiful little girls, Ellie, Zelda, and Susanna.